Cyclocross Season Wrap-up

The long cyclocross season here in North Carolina has finally drawn to a close, but not before the guys and gals on the Performance Bicycle team proceeded to have a blast racing, spectating, and otherwise torturing themselves on their Fuji and Focus cyclocross steeds.

Cross racing is a short, intense, and usually painful experience, but you find yourself wanting to do it all over again the next day! Plus it helps to have a big and varied team like ours, so that there were always teammates there to cheer/heckle you when it was time to push yourself to the limit.

The races even managed to be fun when you found yourself hopelessly tangled in the course tape, hoping that your friends weren’t there to see it (but this always happened right in front of the biggest crowds).

And if you found yourself in the back of the pack, we could count on our teammates to keep things interesting–sometimes with a round of “human barrier” jumping (don’t try this at home)!

Of course it’s nice to win too, and we had our fair share of podiums and even an overall series win to our teams credit this season, not that we’re bragging.

But now that our season is done, it’s time to sit back and watch the real pros duke it out for the coveted World Championship titles. This year the Worlds are being held in Sankt Wendel, Germany, with the elite men’s and women’s races scheduled for Sunday afternoon (German time), but there will be a whole weekend of racing when you factor in the Under-23 and Junior titles up for grabs.

In the men’s elite race the favorites have to the Belgians Sven Nys and Niels Albert or defending champ Zdenek Stybar, but don’t count out the American team of veterans Jonathan Page, Tim Johnson, Jeremy Powers and young gun Jamey Driscoll. The women’s elite race has a bevy of contenders as well, including defending champion Marianne Vos and four-time champion Hanka Kupfernagel, but American hopes rest squarely with Katie Compton, who has already won five World Cup races and her seventh straight US national title this year!

Needless to say, we’ll be watching somehow or some way this weekend. How about you?